The present invention relates to the heat transfer of images, and more particularly the heat transfer of images to a conventional frustro-conical flower pot.
Personalized cups, mugs, glasses and other tubular structures have become increasingly popular over the past few years, especially as a specialty gift and/or as advertising devices.
Such items are often created through the use of heat transfer imaging. This process involves the generation of an image in the form of a sublimation ink printout which, when exposed to heat and relatively low mechanical pressure, results in causing the sublimation ink to enter the gaseous state and to be transferred to the object to be personalized before returning to its non-gaseous state.
More particularly, the image to be transferred through this sublimation process is printed first with a sublimation ink onto a transfer paper or a release paper. The image is generated on this paper, which serves as a temporary carrier for the image, in the form of a mirror image of the image which one desires to imprint on the flower pot. This is because, when the image is transferred onto the surface of an object, the reverse side of the sublimation image is exposed, thus rendering the image with the correct orientation for viewing.
As alluded to above, the sublimation heat transfer process involves the transferring of a sublimation ink image through the incorporation of heat and contract pressure. A sublimation ink image can be generated by a copy machine, laser printer, and/or a printing press. However, in all of these cases, the images must be generated with sublimation ink. The sublimation ink print output by such a printer is made up of two basic parts: a transfer release paper and a layer of that usually various colored pigments arranged as a matrix of pixels about different colors to define in image which one wishes to have on the object to be printed. The sublimation ink is printed onto the transfer release paper as would any type of colored or black pigment be printed by a computer printer. As noted above the image is printed as a mirror image of the final image so as to effect the desired display when the image is transferred.
Once the image formed by the sublimation ink has been printed on the transfer paper, it is ready for transfer. The heat transfer process involves putting the sublimation ink image into intimate contact with the object to be printed, while simultaneously heating up the sublimation ink to a temperature at which the ink enters the gaseous stage. The vaporized inks are thus caused to be freed from the transfer paper and pass to a coating on the object to which the image is to be transferred. The ink then adheres to the coating on the object.
The heat transfer process heats the transfer paper and sublimation ink to a required temperature (approx. 400 degrees Fahrenheit). As the temperature of sublimation ink approaches this temperature, the sublimation ink will start to release from the transfer paper and will be transmitted to the coating on the object.